When the Foo Fighters perform on a late-night stage, Dave Grohl always serves as both a guest and a musical act, as was the case last night: the band took to Late Night to perform “Chasing Birds,” and Grohl sat down for a talk with Seth Meyers. Meyers, a former cast member and writer on Saturday Night Live, often directs his Late Night discussions toward SNL when necessary, which resulted in a great story about the time Nirvana was the musical guest on a week when Charles Barkley hosted.
Grohl reminisced about shooting promos for the September 25, 1993 episode with Barkley, saying, “I remember our bass player, Krist Novoselic… Krist Novoselic is 6’8″, OK? The bass player for Nirvana is very tall. And I remember when we were doing the promos on the Thursday before the show, I remember seeing Krist tower over Charles Barkley and thinking, ‘This is getting weird. Now this is officially weird.’”
Meyers joked that this makes him appreciate Barkley’s rebounding ability even more, given that he’s not even taller than Nirvana’s tallest member. He then told Grohl a story about the episode and the Nirvana song “Rape Me,” which Barkley had told him about. “I remember him regaling us with stories of the first time he hosted and saying that he was in his dressing room when Nirvana… when you guys were doing your songs, and he said, ‘I was sitting there and I was like, ‘Are they saying ‘rape me?”’”
Kurt Cobain described the controversial song’s meaning in a 1994 Rolling Stone interview, saying, “I’ve gone back and forth between regretting it and trying to justify myself.” I was attempting to write a song that embraced women while still addressing the topic of rape. […] It isn’t a pretty picture. However, a woman who is being raped and is enraged by the situation… it’s similar to ‘Go ahead, rape me, just go for it, because you’re gonna get it.’ I’m a firm believer in karma, and that motherf*cker is going to get what he deserves, eventually. That man will be caught, he’ll go to jail, and he’ll be raped. ‘So rape me, do it, get it over with. Because you’re gonna get it worse.’”
